The rain is like an orchestra to me
Little gifts from above meant to say
Girl, you falling at his feet

The dusk slowly turned to deep night, the clouds darkening from gentle white puffs into heavy, fat rain clouds. Her wind shield wipers thwooped across her shield and she allowed the monotonous sound lull her into a hypnotic state.

She was numb.

The skies began to drip heavier, showering the dull Chicago night with its dreary wetness. Falteringly, Sam brought her hand up to her face and swiped at a few errant tears that slipped past the barrier of her eyelids, as she sat, blinded by her eyes' natural shields, not noticing the changes in the atmosphere around her.

She had lost Luka. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and licked her lips as she leaned her head forward and rested it gently on the steering wheel. Her head hurt so badly, a result of three hours of constant crying into her sofa's arm after Luka had left her apartment.

Her mind drifted back, of its own accord, to the last images she held of Luka, his eyes tortured, heavy, pleading with her to tell him that what he was saying was wrong. She had wanted so badly to tell him that she was willing to take that further step, to turn that red light into a green one... but he hadn't let her, the power of his words had stunned her into silence and she simply couldn't speak past the Luka-enforced lump in her throat.

She hadn't even tried to stop him from leaving. She had simply watched his retreating form, her fingers raising to her tingling lips and when she heard the door close, she had let out a gut wrenching sob. And then another. And another. And another until eventually her stomach hurt and she had to lay herself down on the sofa and clutched a cushion to her abdomen as she was thrown into a pitiful state of tears.

She had wanted to get up and follow him and yell at him to stop, that she loved him, that she wanted to be with him... but she didn't. And so, three hours later, she had picked her shattered self off of her sofa and grabbed her car keys and simply drove.

Two hours later she had ended up here.

The heavy, fat drops thundered onto her roof and Sam could see that each falling drop was sending splashes of two feet into the air. Still she couldn't move.

But everything inside you knows
Says more than what you've heard
So much more than empty conversations
Filled with empty words

She didn't know why she was here. This was the last place she would have expected to end up.

Reaching her hand up to her cheek, she could still feel Luka's fingers on her skin. Her chest heaved as she attempted to breathe in. It hurt to even do that. There was an ache in the hollow of her chest and she didn't know what it was. Her bones felt cold and empty, and she wondered how she had managed to drive while her body shook as violently as it did. Her shuddering hand climbed across her face to her lips and then her other hand joined it and pressed hard into her face as she sobbed again.

"I would have given everything up for you. Volim te. Remember that."

She was positive that she would never forget. She could feel his arms wrap around her as she remembered lying feeling, for the first time in her life, safe in his arms. She could still feel him inside of her.

They still had so much to discover in one another.

All those smiles unexplored
All the words left unsaid
We strung our dreams
On and all to slender thread

She saw his hands play with a fork as he sat across from her in a restaurant. She saw his hands rub his eyes as he woke up from a peaceful slumber. She felt his hands rub across her arms.

She dragged one hand down her face to her neck and she grasped his chain in her hand and yanked, snapping the fine chain. Looking at the pendant, she could see no beauty in it now, the beauty tarnished by her memories. She stared at the key and felt his fingers close around hers and secure the metal object in her grasp. She opened her hand and turned her palm upside down, allowing the tarnished white gold slither from her grasp.

So I will head out alone and hope for the best
And we can hang our heads down
As we skip the goodbyes

She waited outside the door, the rain soaking through her baggy T-shirt and causing the material to cling to her body.

"Sam?"

Sam looked up at her mother and felt tears spring to her eyes and she couldn't breathe as her cries caught in her throat.

"Oh my God, Sam..."

She lunged at her mother and they both tumbled into the room. Sam couldn't even hear the door close behind her. She cried into her mother's chest and could feel a drip of saliva rolling down her chin, could feel her nose clog up. Gripping onto Jocelyn's back, Sam pawed around, searching for something to hold onto as she felt herself slide into a deep, dark oblivion that she didn't know how to get out of.

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
when you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears
and I held your hand through all of these years...

"It hurts," Sam managed through her tears and she felt her mother's hand in her hair tense slightly. "Why does it hurt so much?" Her words almost silent as they caught in the back of her throat. "Make it stop hurting... I can't make it stop..."

Jocelyn could feel her own tears begin to course down her face as she held her broken daughter in her arms.

"I don't know how, Sam. I don't know how."

She didn't even need to ask what had happened. Her daughter would never cry over Steve like this.

"Please... I don't know how to make it go away..." Sam hugged herself after pulling out of Jocelyn's grip and she rocked herself backwards and forwards on her haunches, gripping painfully onto her ribs.

By now, Jocelyn was shaking almost as badly as Sam, her heart being pulled apart at seeing her only daughter hurting so much.

"Did you love him?" She watched as Sam nodded vigorously, attempting to stem the flow of emotions. "Did he love you?"

"Volim te..."

Jocelyn frowned at her daughter.

"What, Sam?"

Sam's dead eyes stared back at her and she flinched slightly at the emptiness they held.

"It's Croatian for I love you." She sniffed and Jocelyn nodded in understanding. "I didn't know that until tonight..." she shook her head and looked away." He said that to me all the time..."

Fresh tears fell down her cheeks and Jocelyn reached out wipe them away, knowing that they would only be replaced by more.

"What happened tonight, Sam?" She asked gently and shuffled closer to her daughter, who had curled herself up in a ball in the corner of the room.

"He loved me too much to keep pretending..." Sam reached her hand up to her lips again and Jocelyn could see that she was remembering his touch there. "I was so in love with him... he... 've with me... it was killing us... keep pretending and we'd have died..."

Sam closed her eyes and shook her head.

"I think that would be better than this." She looked up at her mother. "I don't know if I can live without, mom. I don't know how..."

Why do the street lamps die
When you're passing by
Like a hand that won't stay on my shoulder tonight
If you held me close, would you laugh it away
Would you dare the glance that I steal to stay

It's not that I don't understand you
It's not that I don't want to be with you
But you only wanted me
The way you wanted me

Now I'm bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts
My once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away
All the sanity in me

For you left me
With so few memories
I could close my eyes and cling to
Just a fading photograph
I'd sometimes sink to

TBC

Songs used:

Rachel Yamagata - The Reason Why, I'll Find A Way
Evanescence - My Immortal
Switchfoot - On Fire
KD Lang - Love Affair